


Missing

by zephyrprince



Category: Trese (Comic)
Genre: Case Fic, Character of Color, Chromatic Character, Chromatic Source, Chromatic Source Creator, Gen, Philippine character, Post-Canon, Yuletide, Yuletide 2010, gen - Freeform, manila, noir, philippine source, philippines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:15:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephyrprince/pseuds/zephyrprince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The water level in the hotel lobby reached the captain’s knees.  By now they were everywhere.  Their appearance was not as he’d read in Guiseppe di Lampedusa.  So much for background research."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeebased](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeebased/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide and happy holidays to coffeebased!

Captain Guerrera’s wristwatch glinted in the bright fluorescence of the overhead as he glanced at it, reading the quartz-inlaid hands. Half past 10PM. He folded the sleeve of his trench coat back over the time piece, his one admission to a persona beyond the uniform. In this job that wasn’t really the order of the day.

He took in a deep breath, lifting his left leg to examine his drenched footwear and the damp pant leg. The water level in the room was rising slowly but appreciably. He reached behind his back and stretched, popping his spine before pulling the brim of his hat higher to stop it from obscuring his vision of the room beyond the dark grey marble column he was leaning against.

The Kambal hovered above him just beyond the column where they had been when he checked out for that mental break. The happy and sad face masks remained visible, less unusual at the moment than when they had walked into his office wearing them.

Guerrera remembered Alexandra once explaining that these masks that kept their talagbusao impulses in check became visible only when they fought. Apparently then, Alexandra being kidnapped caused them to enter a state of ongoing embattlement. He hadn’t seen their humanoid faces at all over the past week.

They had told him she disappeared in Makati City. The two had stepped out for coffee as little Trese sought out to consult the local Duwende population for leads on an unusual disturbance in the local sewer system she believed to be connected to a spike in kidnappings. When she disappeared, the two immediately suspected the Duwended as, indeed, they already had from the descriptions in the circulating gossip.

Unfortunately, this was way out of Guerrera’s league. This was exactly what he had Alex and the Kambal for. As they explained in rushed, frantic speech that marked out the contrast from their norm, he pounded his finger tips on the wood of his old fashioned desk, made equally nervous by the presence of these surprisingly unknown masked figures as by the seemingly insurmountable situation in front of him.

Guerrera looked up taking note of them now after their week together. Their guns emitted ammunition at a swift fire pace, barrels rolling rapidly as the supernatural element of the firearms’ creation came into full effect. But apparently the ability of their bullets to consistently find their target was compromised by the addition of water.

Guerrera plunged his hand into his pocket and fingered the small coin he found there. He’d thought about it several times over the preceding days, but wasn’t sure. His sense of optimism had been aroused anew as the Kambal had flown him above the clouds out of Santolan, out of Quezon City, and to the glittering skyline to the south.

The experience of flight was novel – the warmth of sunshine before filtering into the urban air pollutants, the sudden drench of clouds that simply did not faze the Kambal, the occasional appearance in the corner of his peripheral vision of a Habagat or Amihan wind sprite.

Though their first jaunt into Makati was ultimately unsuccessful, he gathered more data on Alex’s sidekicks than he had in the years he had theoretically known them. Their names – Crispin and Basilio. Their masks – because the talagbusao nature manifested as manic destructive euphoria in one but caustic fury in the other. The opposite affect was inscribed on their faces to keep these sentiments in check.

That they shared a connection with one another he’d never understand was evident. That they loved Alexandra very much was clear. How they shared these bonds remained obscure.

Captain Guerrero lit a cigarette and pulled hard with his mouth. Taking a single long drag, he reveled in the feeling of warmth filling up his lungs. He cherished the tactile input as he fingered the black shaft of the imported Djarum. He took a second puff and then let go, dropping it into the water that, by now, had reached his knees. The orange burn petered out with a sniff, a small puff of smoke wafting off from below him.

By the time they had pinpointed the telos of the area’s oddities to the ManilaPen, the evidence had already been adding up. The omnipresence of water. The shed fish scales at every kidnapping scene. Guerrera had never encountered a member of the tribe the Kambal suspected, but he knew that these crimes could not be attributed to the Philippine dugong.

The water level in the hotel lobby reached the captain’s knees. By now they were everywhere. Their appearance was not as he’d read in Guiseppe di Lampedusa. So much for background research.

They were great gnarled things, human enough in torso but with great horny fins and green-blue spikes emitting from their necks and chests and faces at odd angles.

At least he knew for certain that Diego de Bobadilla’s crusade against the folklore had been false.

The mermaids were all around him now, ugly and arousing at the same time. He reflected on their gender. Though the great heaving breasts marked some out as mermaids for certain, others were clearly more masculine in appearance. This seemed not to detract from the siren invitation that pulled at the hormone-emitting glands around his heart and neck.

He lit another cigarette and ignored their call, ignoring at the same time the great washes of red that periodically hit his waist. The Kambal’s bullets ripped their bodies apart rapidly though they seemed to be replaced each time with ten more, swimming in from somewhere Guerrera couldn’t see.

After an hour of this, the body parts too began to wash his way – gruesomely severed arms, fin stumps with sinew and muscle spilling out of the cuts, even heads with the burn holes of the brothers’ magic bullets rendering their eyes empty and clouded over.

He could see now what had never been legible to him before. Behind the smiling mask, the long haired brother bristled and seethed with hatred as he shot and eventually ripped into the kidnappers of his master, using his usually unsoiled hands as tools of dismemberment, blood and guts staining today’s version of his sacred suits.

And these actions stood in stark contrast to the ever-frowning twin whose mania was only partially tainted by the anxiety of separation from Alexandra. Even without the facial expressions behind the mask, Guerrera could sense the glee of ripping and tearing, of shooting between eyes, and shredding the mer faces.

Finally, Guerrera knew it was time. He reached into his pocket. When she’d first replaced her father, Alex had introduced herself to him. She said she did things differently. She gave him the coin.

She’d called it a dues ex machina.


End file.
